Take a look at this graph. It represents the value of a fund over time. It goes up. It goes down. If you could, when would you invest a lump sum in this fund? At point A, B or C?

B? Yes. It’s the bottom of the market, so your money will grow the most if you invested at this point.

Thing is—you only know when the low point is after it has happened. Hindsight is perfect, but very little good to you if you missed the perfect moment.

However—if you invest smaller sums at regular intervals over a sustained period of time, you will almost certainly invest at least some of your money at the most profitable time.

Waves is designed to maximise your investment by allowing you to invest relatively small amounts of money on a monthly basis.

That means, you’ll benefit regardless of whether the fund goes up or down. In fact, provided you invest in a fund for long enough, a drop in value is an exciting time.

You see, everyone wants to invest when a fund is at its lowest. After all, if the value of the fund only goes up once you’ve bought into it, you’ll make the biggest return. But it’s impossible to know for sure when the value of a fund has bottomed out.

By investing at regular intervals, Waves makes sure you have money going into the underlying funds when they are at their lowest.

Provided the fund increases in value over time, the money you invested when the fund was at its lowest will give you the best return. Even the monthly parcels of money you invested when the fund was relatively high will give you a return, as long as the value of the fund continues to grow.

These underlying Waves funds are very different and complement each other. Each one focuses on a particular kind of investment and has a particular approach.

In this way, we’ve spread the risk of investing in Waves, thereby reducing it. However, bear in mind that the risk isn’t zero. This isn’t a guaranteed savings account, after all. And risk is what drives healthy growth prospects, especially when you invest over the medium- to long-term (five years plus). And isn’t that what you want?

Rule 3: Diversify to manage risk appropriately

Waves places your money into the 21C fund. This comprises of three pots:

Waves is designed to help you invest cost effectively in funds that would normally be closed to you.

Usually, you would need to invest a large lump sum to be able to buy into the funds that drive Waves. We’ve made it possible for you to invest in these funds by putting in smaller monthly sums of money—as little as €500/month.

Not only that, we’ve structured Waves so that after six months, you can withdraw your money without charges or penalties. Other financial products charge an exit penalty to keep your money locked in. Waves doesn’t.

You might expect this access and flexibility to come at a high cost. Not so. We’ve been able to build Waves in a way that keeps costs down to a minimum. That means more of your money gets invested.

A lot goes on behind the scenes to make sure that Waves works. It’s a truly innovative investment machine with clever moving parts. Keeping it all running smoothly takes a lot of effort. Nevertheless, Waves fees are still among the lowest in the industry.

Because we want completely transparent, we’ve listed the fees here for you:

1) There is a monthly service fee of €15. This covers the fixed costs associated with the financial structure that underpins Waves. This is added to the money you transfer into Waves each month. If you have stopped paying into Waves, but still have money invested in it, €180 (or pro rata share of €180) will be deducted from the value of your fund once per year to cover these costs.

2) There is a 2.5% charge on your monthly investments to pay for the mechanism of investing your money into the three funds that make up Waves. In other words, 97.5% of the money you pay in is invested into the funds each month.

3) There is an annual 1.75% fee to pay for the costs associated with administering the Waves scheme. This fee is deducted once a year from the value of your fund holding.

4) The only other fees are the charges your own bank makes when you transfer money in or out of Waves. (Please note: Standard Bank International customers don’t pay any fees on payments into Waves.)

Rule 5: Take action

The key to building up a pot of money over time is to actually do something about it.

The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be building up a pot of money.

What’s certain is this: if you don’t start, you won’t build up anything.

Boal & Co (Pensions) Ltd

Boal & Co is a firm of international actuaries and consultants specialising in advice to offshore insurance companies and pension schemes. Boal & Co is the trustee of the structure underpinning the Waves product.

The company is headquartered on the Isle of Man and has offices in Gibraltar, Dublin and on Jersey.

Boal & Co is a member of Abelica Global, a leading international organisation of actuarial and consultancy firms. The company is registered with the Isle of Man Financial Services Authority as Professional Schemes Administrator, number RA010.

Waves is built on 21st-century investment thinking.

Watch the video to find out more.

The Underlying Waves Fund

Your money goes into a fund called 21C.

21C is an innovative fund that gives you access to investments that would normally only be open to people investing very substantial sums of money. These are funds used by the rich and the super rich—the kind of people who own the yacht you work on. And you’ll have access to those. In other words, Waves mirrors and is built on the investment machines the rich use to grow their own wealth.

21C invests your money in three pots.

The first pot is highly diversified. It’s made up of investments across a range of vital sectors, including agriculture, forestry, energy/bio fuels, specialised property (student accommodation, care homes, ground rents), and infrastructure. The key here is low volatility and above and steady returns.

The second pot is actually another fund: Ruffer. Ruffer has built its approach to fund management on the basis of solid, low-risk investments. It believes that a strategy that delivers consistent, moderate returns is better than one that sometimes scores big, sometimes loses big. It aims to make a return on its investments, whatever the market conditions are.

That doesn’t mean Ruffer sticks to the mainstream. In seeking to secure reliable returns on its investments, it doesn’t follow the pack. A maverick, but one that emphasises preservation of assets and solid growth over high-potential/high-risk investments. You can find out more about Ruffer here: Ruffer.

The third pot is another fund again: Rothschild Investment Trust (RIT). This is where the Rothschild family puts a large part of its money, which should tell you something. RIT invests in a combination of publicly listed companies, large privately owned companies and potential superstar businesses with aggressive growth potential. As you can tell, RIT is built on an investment strategy that mixes high- and low-risk investments—though at all times subduing the overall risk to the portfolio. The net result over time has been returns that have consistently beaten those in global equity markets since 1988. You can find out more about RIT here: RIT.

21C’s philosophy is simple. Invest in things people need and invest in funds that have proven their value and performance over many years. The kind of funds used by the wealthy.